Source:
http://www.screamingbloodymess.com/straightjacketnation.htmlStraightjacket Nation
This interview was conducted via email with Dan and Al. Most answers are by Dan. Those by Al are recognizable by the ominous tone and the letters AL written next to them.
How, where, when and most importantly why did Straightjacket Nation form? What are members involved with other than SJN and what have they done in the past?
I’m not going to answer this question.
The band recently changed their name from Straightjacket to Straightjacket Nation. Why the change?
Straightjacket Nation is a better name, innit?
Upon reading reviews of two other bands called Straightjacket (one an oi! band 
and the other a thrash band) and hearing about others (apparently there’s a pub rock band in Adelaide), I wanted to change the name. I elected Straightjacket Nation because it’s the name of one of our songs. The meaning of the song is that generally when people get together in communion, the will of the weakest and most mediocre mentalities within the group guides it’s direction, or the individuals who are most able to manipulate these shallow individuals are able to control events far beyond a single individuals influence. This is the state of the modern nation state, the straightjacket nation; society is full of dislocated and angry people with little sense of purpose or reason. I’m also saying that we are no exception. Hardcore is music made to make sense of this sense of dislocation and anger, and it’s an attempt to create some sense of purpose or reason. That’s why I wanted to call our band Straightjacket Nation: it captures all the importance and the futility in what we do.
The Gimmie Failure liner notes list ‘Al Barile Mother Fuckers’ as slated to appear in the future on the Eddy split. Why did that change to a covers 7”? Why did you choose to cover The Saints and where did you take the cover photo? Has it all worked out as well as you would have hoped?
It’s called ‘Gimme Failure’. We decided to have that as a covers 7” because Eddy Current’s Pagans song was too long to fit another song on their side, and we didn’t want to have an imbalanced record. Other than the fact that ‘(I’m) Stranded’ is a great song, we covered it to pay tribute to Australian punk rock. We broke into the original warehouse where the Saints took their photo and stood in the exact same spots as they did. Al sprayed ‘Straightjacket’ on the wall because we didn’t change our name then. I don’t know what you mean by the last question, Ari, but I’d say that I wished I could have recorded my vocals a few more times to get used to singing and not screaming. It’s a strange business. I think it’s a great record.
Could you give more info on the various people that have contributed art to Straightjacket Nation including how you know them and whether the art was directed by the band or simply just provided?
The Straightjacket Nation is…
Minister of Transport: Emily.
Minister of Education: DX.
Minister of Welfare: David.
Minister of Warfare: Al.
Plus an assortment of other “Hessians and fagzzzzz” that make up the citizens of the nation, like our Minister of South Australian affairs ‘Two Steppin’ Rhys.
The various Ministers of Propoganda have included Ray Ahn, Rohan Extortion, Max Crumbz and Yeap.
Yeap was there the day that we recorded the demo (our second practise), and drew the picture of the punk in the straightjacket and our logo in about five minutes on Dave’s floor as we listen to the h100’s. Yeap also helped design the cover for the split w/ Eddy Current, the Get Wrecked tape and the s/t 7”.
Max Crumbz is a good friend of ours, of course, and he drew the cover of Get Wrecked.
Rohan Extortion was asked to draw the cover of Gimme Failure because we like his artwork, and we knew him from the days of AIDS. We like him. He’s also designed our shirts which we’re still to print.
Ray offered to do artwork after we met at Utopia Records. He asked me about my GISM backpatch and I asked him if they had the Dicks ‘Kill From The Heart’ LP. They didn’t have it. I still don’t have it. But, he said he liked the sound of the band and offered to do the cover art for the 7”.
Other artwork has been done by members of the band and Tom has helped with flier art.
Just with question 4, if it’s applicable, could you talk about whether the art was direct by the band or just provided by the artist. I’m guessing they just provided it with a basic idea of the context (eg title or release or whatever) but if you happen to know of any other reasons or motivations that lead to and of the artwork maybe elaborate with that.
I asked Ray if he could design a cover which featured the head of Marty Thau (manager of New York Dolls, Television too I think), a frying pan flipping an egg, a bottle of pills, a mammoths head, a praying deaths head nun and a bunch of other random images because I was frying on acid and had spent three weeks straight watching static on my television and listening to the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. Of course, Ray’s artwork has a rich history of confusing images collaged together, and I was fucking psyched when he sent us the Straightjacket cover artwork. It’s framed on my mantel.
As for the other pieces of artwork: Yeap’s art in the demo was his own idea. He likes to draw punks. Max’s art on the cover of ‘Get Wrecked’ was based on an idea I had to redraw the Black Flag ‘Six Pack’ cover art. He drew a fucked up amputee in a straightjacket, because he is a fucked up guy! Rohan wanted to draw something pretty direct and confronting. I like a stark and bleak image to go with the music: I don’t think our music favours colourful artwork or a great use of greytones. I think every piece of artwork we’ve used has reinforced this idea, but the ECSR piece, which was an obvious Saints tribute.
It seems many bands don’t really have a lot to say in interviews and interviewers just as often don’t have much to ask. I mean unless they have some overt message, some particularly awful gimmick, Al Montfort or pretty raging drug problems there’s maybe not an awful lot to talk about beyond influences and tour stories. Maybe it’s because of this interviews are based around the intellectualization and analysis of what may otherwise have be viewed as fairly base and/or visceral feelings and actions. Maybe not… either way you’ve done this both in interviews you’ve conducted
in various zines and to a limited extent within your liner notes. What do you personally gain from this analysis of feelings such as anger, desperation, isolation etc and why do you think this analysis is engaged in so often?
First of all, I think that the reason a lot of bands don’t have much to say is that they get asked shitty questions like “who’s in your band, why did you form, what’s your favourite records” for shitty fanzines that don’t have anything to say. The entire hardcore scene suffers from a paucity of thinking, so it’s no wonder that most interviews are fucken boring. Second of all, I think the reason 
that bands don’t have much to say in interviews is because they’re actually not saying very much as a band. There’s a huge difference between hardcore bands who play hardcore and hardcore bands who are hardcore.
I’m an overly analytical person by nature, I always have been, and I think part of being hardcore and punk to me has been to question and understand feelings like “anger, desperation, isolation”, etc., not just perform them or romanticise them. These are things everybody feels all the time, and these are things that hardcore music expresses. I’m not a fucken sheep and I’m not just gonna express shit that I don’t legit feel or experience, and I want to do this honestly. So, I spend a lotta time thinking about it.
But, here’s some interesting shit for ya, Ari, and the SBM readers, who we all respect and admire!!
Overt message: war is peace.
Awful gimmick: Emily’s mustard coloured hooded jumper.
Al Montfort: Al Montfort.
Raging drug problems: Emily’s caffeine, Dave’s bongs, Al’s hammer, my LSD.
Influences: God, pornography, the government, drugs.
Tour stories: ask BJ.
AL: Al montfort is a good gimmick more people should incorporate him
Throughout the majority of Straightjacket Nation’s releases and songs there’s a more or less obvious hatred of mob mentality particularly, it seems, when it comes to band audience interaction. First of all could you briefly talk about what led you to this current state of hatred. Was there a particular catalyst for it? Secondly how, if at all, do you reconcile this hatred of and desire to discourage ‘herdcore’ behavior with the symbols, anthems, generic name and talk of the ‘Straightjacket Nation’ that is also a major part of the band?
Nice question, strange wording. What led me to this “current state of hatred” was growing up in suburbia and constantly struggling for peer approval through 
school, having a self esteem that depended on how other people felt about me, until my early teen years where I lived in small country towns in Tasmania and Western Australia and then Wollongong and having an enforced isolation and finding strength in that.
Hardcore punk across Australia at the time was a lot more of a space for anti-social rejects and fuck-ups, and Wollongong was a really good town for it. There was no specific catalyst, just a few nights of teenage drunken behaviour and a mix tape with Black Flag on it to save me from latch key cancer.
I guess I’ve tried to make the herd aspect of hardcore apparent by being blatant and obvious about the ways that we play into it. It’s unavoidable that herd-like relationships take place wherever people congregate, and trying to avoid this is just ridiculous. What’s important is to note the ways that other people manipulate you, the ways that people will attempt to make you feel their best interests are your best interests (“how can you say what MY best interest is?!!!”) and make sure you keep that shit at arms length. So, I wrote the song Al Barille Motherfuckers inspired by the sacred law of Islamic and Christian faith - submit your will to what is greater than you, to god - a sacred law shared by politicians, advertising executives and rapists alike. It’s basically another attempt to be apparent and blatant about herdcore mentalities.
Herdcore is just a term I borrowed from Inside Front fanzine to describe bands and people who use the term ’hardcore’ to describe what they’re doing, but offer the most weak, spineless fucking trash, both musically and in the ideas they’re encouraging. Just this weak scene of shoe gazing sycophantic fucking herbs with the same style and thought processes. Herbcore is another accurate term.
Despite this though I’ve seen people two-stepping at some of your recent shows. I don’t feel that that’s necessarily all that symbolic, stigmatic or indicative of much but it’s also not something I ever thought would happen and it made me think that people really do have the capacity to just completely miss the point and twist things into a really dumbed down version that they either desire and/or are more comfortable with. Today it’s lame dance moves cos that’s what they’re used to their peers doing but who knows what it will be tomorrow especially as your popularity grows. Hypothetically what would you do if one day you found yourself faced with an audience made up of people whose main concern was the mosh part and merch table?
On a similar note what would be the ideal audience reaction, for you, to your band?
I fucking detest the fact that the word “two-step” is used at all, and the fact I have to use it in this interview is embarrassing.
It’s difficult to answer this question. First of all, let’s analyse the audience of the average show. Out of every ten people there, lets say that nine are there to hang out with their friends and one is there with the sole purpose of seeing the bands play. So, forgetting that one person, let’s focus on the nine people who are there to hang out with their friends. I’d say that about five of these people are also interested in seeing the bands, and the other four could be anywhere, they have very little interest in the music. So, out of the audience at the show, I’d say most of them don’t really care about the music, it’s entertaining to them, but it isn’t any kind of lifes blood, it isn’t keeping them going, they’ve got other things, they’ve got other music or they’ve got somebody who loves them and that’s enough, or they’re quiet normal balanced individuals for whom music is a little bitta noise to hum along to in the car on the way to work, or what-the-fuck-ever, so the sight of a bunch of people playing hardcore music is just a simple way to spend a half hour while having a few quiet drinks on a Saturday night, and that is that. Then, there’s the small section of rejects and fuck ups that do care about the music, it is a life’s blood, it does keep them going, they don’t have anybody or even if they do it isn’t enough, they need the noise and the feeling of release, they work shitty jobs and they can’t stand it, they gotta see some loud music and get fucked up: there are these people, a few at every show, and these people have nothing else, and a lotta the time, I’m one of these people, a lotta the time, especially before Straightjacket Nation, I’d go to shows and I’d need to fall off the stage onto my face or get an elbow in the ribs, but living in Wollongong there was NO BANDS TO SEE THAT COULD DO THIS FOR ME and I fucken hated the Sydney scene, there was little going on that had me going since Deadstare, Age Of Distrust and even to some extent Syndicate when they mattered, and I gotta say that AVO past their first few shows never really appealled to me because of personal stigmas that I had with the SHC / Hated And Proud shit when I was younger, particularily with one individual Mr Craig Sonic Edge, a stigma that was resolved with a few quiet words in the bathroom (“don’t you go in the bathroom with me”) at a punk show. So basically why Straightjacket Nation started, I NEED THIS MUSIC TO GET THROUGH THE DAY, and that’s what the song Get Wrecked is about, I’d rather bleed and feel something real at an SJN show than go through another weekend of watching bands and music that does very little for me. Now, as it stands there are a few bands in Australia who really get my blood boiling live, 
there are plenty of bands that I like to see and that I enjoy the music of and who are fun or entertaining or just really fucken great bands to see, but there are few bands that when I see them I’m really feeling it. OK, so all this said, I understand that when people come and see Straightjacket, they’re not all coming from the same place, there are hardcore kids that like us, punk kids, crust kids, hipsters, snobs, losers, metalheads and even the occasional herdcore kid, and they might feel something different, but if they really need it, they’ll fight for it.
So, the long and short of it is, if you see someone two stepping to SJN, we probably don’t give a fuck because next to the two stepper is some punk kid from the suburb that has sat through six bands just to see us, and she’s far more important to us than the two stepper. We play shows for people like her, not the two stepper. But if the two stepper gets it, and that’s their thing, skipping around, that’s their thing. Straightjacket don’t write any songs with mosh parts for people to dance to, and our merch table is pretty lacking. And if the people who say they care about hardcore really care about hardcore, then they’ll always rise to the top over the herdcore kids and herdcore bands, so it’s not like our popularity is going to grow anymore in that scene. But if someone’s release is a two step, what the fuck are we gonna do? Tell them to keep their elbows up and get lower to the ground? We’re far from the dance police.
But back to the original point, I recognise that there will often be people who need the kind of music that we play to get through, and they might be complete fuckwits that we cannot get along with in any way, but that’s kinda the beauty of hardcore punk. There are some fuckwits who have nothing more.
And as for my preferred audience reaction: the HB strut, elbows up high and the head down low, the creepy crawl, the cheap shot to my head, the head grab nervous breakdown shake, the drooling idiot, the neanderthalic stomp, the go-go dance. I’m not a big fan of the ironic disco pelvic thrust or the “two-step” or the kickbox or the “run from one side of the room to the other smashing onto the crowd” idiocy, because they’re all too self conscious. Especially the fucking ironic disco pelvic thrust, a move which proved it’s point about ten years ago, in other words, tired, lame, boring.
What covers have you done?
F.U.’s ‘What You Pay For’. Jerrys Kids ‘Straightjacket’. Urban Waste ‘Reject’. Heaps more. Agnostic Front, Limpwrist, Void. Even Antidote and Scream, but they never left the practise room. Why are you asking this? What covers have YOU DONE?
What is the sound at the start of the Get Wrecked tape and at both the start and end of Cult Hardcore?
It’s a sample taken from the death rattle of your first born child.
How, if at all, does the way you play and are received differ from state to state and why do you think that is?
We all work shitty jobs or go to school, so when we play it’s always as hard as possible, whether in Sydney, Adelaide or Brisbane. Our shows differ from show to show depending on the venue more than the city, and depending on the crowd, whether or not people are feeling like getting their shirts ripped and bloody.
What’s the spoken word bit from the start of the Cult Hardcore tape from and why is it there?
The spoken word is taken from an interview I did with Charles Manson. He basically strummed a couple of guitar lines and sent the tape back to me. The rest of it was illegible, but I liked the start part. He followed that part with some of his folk songs, but they’re pretty unintelligible due to the screaming of prisoners and the out of tune guitar. It’s there because Manson is in many ways a pretty significant figure, and he illustrates perfectly what I’d consider the disease of herd mentality. He managed to convince people that it was in their best interest to commit murder, and they submitted to his will. Maybe Darby Crash was right. Maybe people who can be controlled should be controlled. Plus, it just sounds fucken weird and creepy and a little seedy.
The fights, the hidden weapons, head-but greetings, broken gear, sheer fucking unpredictability of every single word, action and we must assume thought…. I mean to (probably slightly incorrectly) paraphrase Gareth from The Office sure he’s a great guy and all but should Al really be in the
band?
Al is a great guy… he should run this fucken country. It’s rare you’ll meet someone who’s so fucken nice.
AL: yes he's a cool guy don’t knock him.
You’ve played shows together for a fair while and now have the split out. How did SJN come to be associated with Eddy and could you please say a little about them for people interstate that aren’t on the bandwagon yet?
We don’t really have much in common with many bands in this city, if this isn’t already apparent. The hardcore scene is fucking bankrupt in this town, we have very to do with it. We don’t associate with the “hardcore nightclubs”, we don’t have a myspace page, we don’t belong to any crews or write mosh parts into our songs, we don’t want in. Bands that we like in this city play in a kind of loose scene which would probably comprise of ex-Pink Palace affiliated crusties, Westside Footscray bogans, Southside / Frankston garage rock aficionados, Fitzroy hipsters, suburban teenage rebels etc., so in other words, not a real scene.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring were discovered one night when we heard the guitar player worked at Corduroy Records, and we’d been having troubles with them in regards to our 7”, this guy owed us a grand or something. So we went down to 161 to beat the money out of him. Emily had a bat in her car, and we smuggled some dusters and a blade into the club. We waited for the band to play, sitting around in the corner, talking shit, and they finally played. When we went to beat the guy up, it turned out a) he was the wrong guy b) he was the nicest dude and c) he could get us the money back. So, we traded numbers and records and talked shit for a while, and met the whole band. Eventually the guitarist, Eddy Current, pressed our records and we’ve all been close friends since.
OK, so Eddy Current Suppression Ring are probably our favourite band to play with in this city. If you haven’t heard them, buy their records. They write beautiful songs, like the Nerves, Modern Lovers, Pagans, etc., and they’re good people.
Does screaming fuck your throat up much?
After all of your long questions, this one is kinda funny.
Yes Ari Cat, yes it does. It does fuck my throat up. It also fucks my teeth up. And the skin on my face.
What really makes me laugh about a lot of Australian hardcore is when the singers, almost literally, demand people to run into each other in that whole do-the-Chuck-Norris-mosh thing while they stand on the stage safe, unscathed and completely separated from what they’re inciting. I bring this up because well, mainly, I find it pretty fucking easy and funny to talk crap on twerps like that and secondly to contrast it with a Straightjacket Nation show where everything is usually more spontaneous, natural and because of these factors much more chaotic. At your show’s peoples reactions generally arn’t regulated by the latest hardcore mosh style book or contingent upon the occurrence of the mosh part after the each second chorus. As well as this you’re generally right amongst the audience and probably have the bruises, marks and chipped teeth to prove it. But at the same time do you think this has potential to turn Iggy Pop and become the main attraction of the band? Do you ever feel obliged to act in a certain way while playing or outdo yourself?
No, I don’t feel obliged to act in any way. After a week of working shitty hours in market research, sitting on the phone listening to hopeless idiots drool, after the bleak parade of human misery that I have to endure every time I’m in the fucking city, after listening to hours of Septic Death records, cooped up in my room into the late hours reading Bukowski or writing shit for the magazine I 
started, after trying to come to terms with the thousands of dollars in debt I am in, after putting myself a few hundred more in debt over records of shitty fast hardcore music, after any of this, I’m not in any space of mind to get on stage and direct the crowd to “run into each other”.
When we started this band, I was kind of interested in playing the crowd. There were shows we played where I’d deliberately attempt to charge the level of violence, and there were shows where that was inappropriate and we tried to fuck with that, but I think now we prefer to let the audience direct what happens, and just try to play as hard as we can. No distractions. Pure force. All the kings men cannot put it together again.
Now I’m really interested in the way Black Flag would play: they’d just provide the soundtrack, and they’d demand the audience take what happened in the show into their own hands. It could be ugly: a bunch of suburban beach goons smashing each other bloody. It could be uglier: a bunch of punks throwing bricks at cops. But they’d expect nothing from the audience, and they’d give them everything. I think that the 1990’s hardcore scene really changed from the 80’s because a lot of bands existed to proselytise and promote ideas, and a lot of people had this idea that money could be made out of the music, so a lot of hardcore bands acted like mainstream rock acts, that is, herdcore bands. We’ve always preferred to play a solid set with little space for distraction, and after singing a couple of songs I’m in no space to explain the lyrics to a song like ‘Gimme Failure’, which is just about fucking your life up anyway and isn’t anything worth promoting or explaining in any depth. When we break, it’s because we’ve broken something or we’re fucked and need to breathe or need to tune or something, but when we break we don’t wanna make it a long drawn out affair. So, the long and short of it is: no, I don’t feel obliged to do anything, I’m usually way too concerned with delivering a lyric or getting a breath to try and encourage people to “have a fun time” or whatever.
As for the Iggy reference, nice. I don’t think that’s a problem, because Dave Alexander and the Ashetons were fucking boring to look at, so all Ig had to do was smile and people would be captivated, unless Ron had his fucken brown shirt on or something.
We play to kill.
What’s your discography at the moment and what do you have planned for the future?
Demo TAPE (2004)
Get Wrecked TAPE (2005)
Gimme Failure TAPE (2005)
s/t 7” (2005)
Cult Hardcore TAPE (2006)
Split 7” w/ Eddy Current Suppression Ring (2006)
Demo BOOT LP (2006?) (Some US label booted the demo on one sided LP, we never saw it, apparently there are 100 copies of it or something? It’s on eBay occasionally.)
As for the plans, fuck you. What we do is secret. Worldwide tour. Split with God So Loved The World. No myspace page. No Next club shows. Maybe one t-shirt design?! Live tape, EP, LP, box set.
Interview conducted via a series of emails by Ari during the period 19/04/06 to 3/05/06
Wrestler mask photos by Stefan Grudza
All other photos by Steph Flynn
